'90 ZR-1 brake refurbish options

[tiegsd]

Also did a thing ... for funsies.

[dredgeguy]

Yup, did the same. Great conversation starter at cars and coffee or car shows.

[tiegsd]

Originally Posted by dredgeguy

Yup, did the same. Great conversation starter at cars and coffee or car shows.

Nice, that's a good spot. The ones I got ended up being super small, and I wasn't sure if they would stay stuck to engine parts due to the heat.

[tiegsd]

Picked up this cool little gadget to hopefully speed up brake bleeding.

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by tiegsd

Also did a thing ... for funsies.

Yep me too--Put a Lotus decal on the right rear of the hatchback on the '95 Polo Green. Once tried to get into the local British Car Union show with the Lotus group but they weren't buying it. Oh well, we are all still proud of the Lotus heritage. --Bob

[Mystic ZR-1]

Originally Posted by WARP TEN

Yep me too--Put a Lotus decal on the right rear of the hatchback on the '95 Polo Green. Once tried to get into the local British Car Union show with the Lotus group but they weren't buying it. Oh well, we are all still proud of the Lotus heritage. --Bob

Those Brits have no sense of humor 😀
They don't even laugh at Lucas Electrical jokes?

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by Mystic ZR-1

Those Brits have no sense of humor 😀
They don't even laugh at Lucas Electrical jokes?

They do, as do I. Having owned a dozen or so British cars (54 Aston, several XKEs, 67 Austin Healey, '48 Bentley, etc.), I am intimately familiar with Lucas Electrics. The 54 Aston actually had a voltage regulator with adjustable points, like in a distributor. The Prince of Darkness. And my wife is known around my house as the Princess of Darkness. Every time she leaves a room she turns out the lights, even if I have just turned them on. She likes living in a dark cave I think.--Bob

[tiegsd]

All hardware is finally intalled. Front calipers were a bit of an ordeal to reinstall as even with full compression of the pistons, the el cheapo Autozone pads were simply too thick for the new rotors (or the old originals as it turns out). Also had to do a little hand machining of the end tabs on the pad backing to get the caliper retaining pins to go in properly

Plan to get new new pads asap from powerstop as I don't trust these. I am going to continue and finish up feed and bleed as is for now. Below is what the fronts look like (not sure why the photo orientations are all weird).

[tiegsd]

Got the master cyliner bled today. It was definitely air bound after sitting for so long as well as draining out the reservoirs so I could give them a good cleanout. Hardest part was getting the front reservoir brake line nut to brake loose. It's roughly a 12mm, but my wrench is just a little to big, so resorted to the small ford wrench again, which did the trick without mangling the nut too bad.

Also made a makeshift "brake pedal buddy" out of some scrap wood since my helper is out of town. Tedious, but it works.

[tiegsd]

Was unable to get any fluid to go to the passenger front caliper, or to either rear caliper. Drivers front was no problem, and pedal goes smoothly to the floor. Pedal locks at half travel for other calipers, so have to assume there is blockage somewhere.

ABS unit pulled, next will test each brake line with hand pump, but as my ABS has never worked right I strongly suspect it is the culprit. As you can see it isn't in the best shape. Need to make sure the 12 pin on the car is okay, will bench test relys later when I get time.

Another tidbit I discovered is that in order to drop the bin that the ABS unit sits in out from the bottom, you have to move a bracket and the e brake cable assembly out of the way, so chose to take the abs unit out from the top. Had to pull the drivers seat for access and leverage.

Also, my flare nuts were apparently torqued by a silverback gorilla. My small pipe wrench was a life saver, easily broke them free with minimal mangling of the flarenuts (I tried regular box end as well as line wrenches, no dice).